Jeremy Clarke
Already a subscriber? Log in
We stayed at the cottage on a bed-and-breakfast basis. The lady owner of the cottage enforced one house rule only, which she impressed on us anxiously at every opportunity and throughout the weekend, both verbally and in capital letters on purple and pink post-it notes: on no account were we to leave the front door open for more than a second in case the cats escaped.
There were two of these cats. One was invisible throughout our stay. We only heard about it. The other was a cat of the vilest type: a grossly obese ball of grey fluff with buttocks as large as a small child’s. The bored expression on its flat and peevish face suggested that to be worshipped and adored by human beings was nothing less than its due. Fine grey hairs coated the surfaces of the cushions of its most comfortable thrones like a mould. Its daily bowel movements were conducted indoors, on litter trays, of which it had a choice of three.
Somehow, a blade of grass had insinuated itself up through one of this cat’s sinuses, and about a quarter of an inch was poking out through its left nostril. This caused uncontrollable sneezing bouts, in which blood, mucus, and small pieces of flesh were expelled astonishing distances. The cottage parlour used to be the post office. The traffic noise going past the old shop window consisted mainly of the occasional clip-clop of a horse. Sitting at the table behind thick granite walls, at Britain’s Celtic extremity, with a bass-heavy and dogmatic Andrew Marr coming out of a dusty old radio, and with all of our lives and conversation now focused on this quarter-inch of a blade of grass protruding from a cat’s glistening nostril, and on whether or not to attempt an extraction by tweezers, even Devon seemed very far away.
On the Sunday we drove 500 yards, parked, and walked another 70 yards to Madron’s Holy Well. Her pink Miu Miu ballet flats looked a picture negotiating the waterlogged tractor ruts in the gateway to a field that we mistook for the path first of all. The well, when we found it, was an undistinguished and shallow pond in the undergrowth lined with roughly cut stones. Tradition has it that, if a maiden drops a straw cross weighted with a pin into the water, then counts the rising bubbles, this will be the number of years she will have to wait to be married. We found something resembling straw, but neither of us had a pin, and it would be stretching things far beyond the bounds of credibility to pretend that she was a maiden, anyhow, so the idea was abandoned.
Next to it, a tree was hung spectacularly and colourfully with clouties, or strips torn from the clothing of sick petitioners, ideally from clothes worn near the afflicted area. The general belief is that as the strips deteriorate in the elements so the particular illness or affliction will decrease in severity. Remembering the piece of grass stuck up the cat’s nose, she considered tearing a strip from her Chanel black wool, gold button suit, and hanging that from a twig, praying that the cat would die a lingering, agonising death. Then she came to her senses and dismissed that idea also, mainly on the grounds that it was much simpler to just leave the door open and hope it gets run over.
Also in Society
Also by Jeremy Clarke
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in